Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Nevertheless she hugged him back as hard and as often as possible; she locked her legs over his and held him on top of her despite the pain. She was so full of love that she could hardly take her eyes off him, hardly bear to let her skin be out of contact with his. If necessary, she could endure a few bruises.

  She had to admit, however, that she had learned to hate horses. Any culture which couldn’t devise a better way to travel than this really ought to let itself die out. When Geraden announced that they were within reach of Sternwall, she said, ‘Thank God!’ with such sincerity that he burst out laughing.

  ‘You think it’s funny,’ she groused. ‘I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life, and you think it’s hilarious. I swear I don’t know what I see in you.

  ‘Of course,’ she added considerately, ‘if I did know I’d probably want to put my eyes out.’

  ‘Be careful, my lady,’ he replied in an aggrieved tone. ‘I have a sensitive nature. If you give me any excuse – any excuse at all – I’ll have to start apologizing.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ she growled, trying to sound bitter even though she was grinning with her whole body. ‘The last time you did that, we didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.’

  She made him laugh again. Then he leaned out of his saddle and kissed her dramatically. ‘Ah, Terisa,’ he sighed when he had subsided, ‘you do me good. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. After all those years serving the Congery and failing – after making the wrong choice and stopping Nyle instead of concentrating on Prince Kragen – after botching our chance to stop Elega – after being made to look like my own brother’s murderer, and then having to just hurl myself into a mirror without any idea what would happen—’ His list of disasters was really quite impressive when he toted it up like that. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it was actually possible to feel this good.’

  ‘How much farther do we have to go?’ she asked because she didn’t have anything better to say. ‘I want a bed.’

  Geraden grinned and gave her the best answer he had.

  This was their fourth day on the road, and since they had left behind the smoking ruins of Houseldon they hadn’t seen the slightest indication that Mordant was at war. Heading almost directly northeast, they had crossed the Broadwine on its way east-northeast toward the Demesne, and had followed the road in the direction of the Care of Termigan. ‘The Termigan will help us,’ Geraden had said confidently. ‘He’s an old ally of the King’s. There’s a story that he saved King Joyse’s life in the last of the big battles against Alend – roughly thirty years ago.’

  Terisa had nodded without taking her eyes off the surrounding landscape. She had met the Termigan: she had the impression that he was a man who could be trusted absolutely – but only on his own terms.

  North and east of Houseldon, the Care of Domne seemed to be composed almost entirely of the kind of fertile hills which made cultivation difficult, but which provided abundant rich grass for sheep. Toward the south and the west, mountains remained visible, but they became steadily harder to descry as the road wound out of the Care. Geraden explained that the border of Domne stretched from the eastmost point of the spur of mountains on the north – a point called Pestil’s Mouth because there the Pestil River came out of the spur – along a relatively straight line toward a distinctive peak in the southern range, a mighty and unmistakable head of rock named, for no known reason, Kelendumble. That line divided Domne from both the Care of Termigan to the north of the Broadwine and the Care of Tor to the south.

  Although the border was purely theoretical, the countryside did appear to change after Terisa and Geraden entered Termigan. The edges of the landscape became flintier; the grasses and shrubs, the wildflowers and stands of trees all had an air of toughness, as if they endured in ungiving dirt against unkind weather. ‘The soil is good for grapes,’ Geraden explained, ‘and not bad for hops. But it isn’t much use for corn, or wheat, or worren.’ Worren was one of the few grains – in fact, one of the few foods – that she found strange in this world. ‘In Domne, they joke that everybody who lives here develops a permanent case of dyspepsia from eating the food – and then from trying to feel better by drinking too much.

  ‘On the other hand, I’ve heard it said that High King Festten won’t drink anything except Termigan wine.’

  As the soil changed, so did the hills: they began to look less rumbled, more ragged, as if they had been cut by erosion rather than raised by the ground’s underlying bones. The road twisted through ravines and gullies rather than along shallow vales and hollows. In contrast, however, the weather turned increasingly springlike – warm in the sun despite the cool nights and shadows; full of green and flowering scents; hinting at moisture.

  Terisa wanted a bath so badly that the mere idea made her scalp itch.

  Forcing herself to think about other things, she occasionally reflected that ravines and gullies were ideal places for ambushes. Such things seemed entirely unreal, however. After all, Alend had sent its strength to the siege of Orison. And the forces of Cadwal were on the far side of Mordant to the east. So the only real danger came from Imagery. And any attack that struck by Imagery wouldn’t need to rely on ravines and gullies for success.

  She reasoned that Master Eremis probably didn’t know where they were. He couldn’t know, unless they happened to pass through a place that showed in one of his mirrors – and he happened to look during the brief time they were visible.

  She couldn’t bring herself to worry about the possibility.

  In fact, she didn’t even remember what the Termigan had said about trouble in his Care until Geraden brought her in sight of Sternwall itself, late in the afternoon of their fourth day on the road.

  The sight made her wonder how she could have forgotten.

  Pits of fire in the ground, the Termigan had said.

  Sternwall was a fortified stone city. It had a buttressed wall built of quarried granite; and within the wall all the houses and other edifices were of stone. From this distance, the basic style of construction seemed to be mud-plaster pointed with cement. The Termigan’s people could have laughed at the attack which had destroyed Houseldon.

  Nevertheless Terisa was sure they weren’t laughing.

  Even from several hundred yards away, she could sense the heat of the glowing liquid rock which seethed and bubbled in long pools outside the walls. There were half a dozen of them, all set in higher ground which sloped down toward the city, all shaped as if they were flowing slowly, inexorably toward the walls. Eremis had said, Pits of fire appear in the ground of Termigan – almost within the fortifications of Sternwall. He must have had a hard time restraining his mirth. Fed by translation, the pits melted the earth between them and the city. She didn’t know how long this had been going on, but she guessed that it wouldn’t continue much longer. Already, the granite wall had begun to slump like heated wax at four different points; wide sections of the city’s outward face reflected the magma redly, as if they were slick with sweat. The people of Sternwall were eventually going to be burned out of their homes. Orange-red glared into the sky like a presage of sunset.

  Geraden scowled at the sight bitterly. ‘Glass and splinters!’ he murmured. ‘Oh, Eremis. No wonder the Termigan doesn’t trust Imagers.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Terisa had to swallow hard to make her throat work. ‘Why? I mean, why do it this way? Why not put this – this lava – why not translate this lava right into the city and be done with it?’

  ‘It’s more fun this way,’ grated Geraden. Then he shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it. Sternwall itself probably isn’t in the Image. The mirror they’re using probably shows a place up the hill somewhere. This is as far as they can adjust the focus.’

  Guards paced the wall without getting too close to the heat. Terisa saw two men stop, point toward her and Geraden; one of them left the wall. She supposed that under the circumstances Sternwall didn’t get many visitors. Trying to force down the taste of bile, s
he nudged her horse into motion.

  Grimly, she and Geraden rode past the pits toward the gate on the far side of the city.

  Near the lava, she could hear it seething, a deep, almost inaudible rumble that seemed to echo in the marrow of her bones; the sound of the earth being eaten away.

  As quiet as that noise was, however, it seemed to deafen her. She hardly heard the lonely cry of a bugle rising from the walls of the city. She hardly heard Geraden say, ‘Looks like the Termigan is sending men out to meet us. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk letting us in until he knows who we are.’

  She should have been ready. She was near an Image: she should have understood that she and Geraden were in danger of being spotted. Unfortunately, she wasn’t thinking that clearly. She was too full of Sternwall’s plight to think clearly.

  She was taken completely by surprise when a touch of cold as thin as a feather and as sharp as steel slid straight through the center of her abdomen.

  Yet the surprise itself may have been what saved her. She had no time to be frightened, paralyzed. Instead, she yelped a warning and flung herself to the side, out of the saddle, out of the way.

  The fangs missed her. They came so close, however, that they snagged her shirt at the shoulder, nearly tore it off her body.

  She hit the ground awkwardly, wrenched her knee, fell flat on her face. Desperately, she scrabbled her legs under her and pitched to her feet—

  —just in time to see a gnarled black spot the size of a puppy get up on its limbs and come scrambling toward her. Its savage jaws took up more than half its body: they stretched for her, ravening.

  At her yell, Geraden had wheeled his mount. Bounding from an invisible perch on the other side of a translation, a black, round shape flipped past him. With all four limbs, it caught the appaloosa by the head.

  Its jaws ripped the horse’s skull apart. Fountaining blood, the appaloosa went down as if it had crashed into a wall. Geraden landed hard: he was momentarily stunned. Before he could recover, his mount’s convulsions rolled the horse over onto his legs.

  Munching brains and bone, the black creature began to eat its way through the horse toward him.

  Another fierce shape appeared out of nowhere – and another – struck the ground – rolled to a stop—

  One of them went for Geraden. The other rushed at Terisa.

  She had no choice, no time: when the nearest creature sprang at her, she ducked, flinched aside. Geraden had given her a knife – for cooking, he had said, teasing her because he did all the cooking – and she groped for it while she dodged; she jerked it from its sheath, hacked blindly at her assailant.

  Her blow caught nothing but air. Off balance, barely able to support her weight with her twisted knee, she stumbled directly into the path of the second attacking shape.

  Its fangs were curved and jagged, made for rending. In a mirror, she had seen a creature like this tear a man’s heart out. It was going to rip her to tatters. And there was another one turning to jump her from behind.

  Geraden had a few more seconds to live than she did. The red meat of his horse had distracted both of his attackers: they were feeding voraciously. He was safe until they reached his trapped legs.

  Wildly, he struggled to open his mount’s saddlebags.

  The blade he had given Terisa was little more than a filleting knife; a hunter might have used it to skin a rabbit. It was the only thing she had to fight with, however; she didn’t question it. Since she was off balance anyway, she thrust her weight in the direction she was falling, so that her arm and the knife came around in a wide, sweeping slash.

  Somehow, this blow found the creature before the creature reached her face. The black shape tumbled to the side, spattering green blood everywhere.

  She tried to catch herself, but her knee gave out. She toppled with a cry just as the second attacker leaped at her back.

  Geraden’s assailants were working on the appaloosa’s shoulders.

  From the nearest saddlebag, he pulled out a sackful of corn meal and flung it.

  The sack burst open on the first creature’s teeth.

  With a sound like thick fabric being shredded, the shape sneezed.

  Like its jaws and its appetite, its sneeze was too big for its body. The blast knocked it backward, off the dead horse; tucking its legs around itself, it rolled away.

  Another sneeze: another roll.

  Geraden searched frantically for something else to throw.

  Terisa was down. She couldn’t get back up. Her legs shoved at the ground as if her back were broken, but she couldn’t bring them under her.

  One of the black shapes moved toward her.

  As if sensing her helplessness, it stopped hurrying: its steps were almost dainty as it approached. Its huge jaws opened delicately. Each one of its teeth was sharp for her flesh.

  Then the quarrel from a crossbow struck the creature so hard that it skipped off the ground and sailed through the air as though it had been kicked by a giant. A few drops of its green blood splashed into her hair as it flew past.

  Like a spike driven by a sledgehammer, another quarrel nailed the feeding beast to the appaloosa’s carcass. Without a sound, the creature gaped and died, gushing rank fluids around its fangs.

  One of the Termigan’s men pounded the last black shape into a pulp under the shod hooves of his mount.

  A moment later, the three men halted in front of Terisa and Geraden. They peered down from their high seats. Snarling, one of them demanded, ‘What in the name of goatshit and fornication are those things?’

  Geraden didn’t seem to notice that he had been rescued. He continued thrashing through the saddlebag, hunting uselessly for a weapon. ‘That bastard,’ he panted between his teeth. ‘That bastard. If I had a mirror—’ His whole face was wet with sweat or tears. ‘If I just had a mirror—’

  Terisa still couldn’t get her legs under her. Her knee felt numb, dead. She wanted to say, insist, Help me, is he all right, did you kill them all? The only thing her throat and stomach agreed to do, however, was retch. She had green blood in her hair, and it stank – it smelled like corpses rotting in sewage. The head and most of the shoulders of Geraden’s horse had been chewed away, devoured— Like the Castellan’s two guards and Underwell. She kept gagging, but nothing came up.

  Maybe Mordant wasn’t at war. But she and Geraden were.

  Oh, yes.

  The Termigan’s men dismounted. Two of them heaved the appaloosa’s carcass off Geraden; the third lifted Terisa to her feet. They were hard men with grim mouths and red eyes: they had spent too much time staring into the destruction of Sternwall, watching it boil closer. ‘All right,’ one of them said harshly, ‘you’re safe. We’ve saved you. Who are you? What’re those things?’

  ‘Imagery,’ Geraden gasped. He still seemed unaware of the men. His attention was on Terisa. ‘There could be more. He could translate them right now. We’ve got to get out of range.’

  The men wanted answers – but they also understood Geraden. Just for a second, they glanced at each other, hesitating. Then the man who had helped Terisa off the ground picked her up and leaped for his horse.

  The other two mounted instantly; one of them pulled Geraden up behind him. The horses stretched into a gallop back toward the city’s gates, putting as much distance as possible between the riders and the point of translation.

  Terisa still had her knife clenched in her fist. Her hand and the knife were covered with foul, green blood.

  ‘Relax!’ the man holding her gritted into her ear. ‘We can keep your balance better if you relax.’

  She couldn’t relax. She couldn’t stop trying to retch.

  ‘How far?’ one of the other men asked Geraden. ‘How far do we have to go to be safe?’

  At last, Geraden began to respond to his rescuers. ‘Can’t be sure.’ The pounding of hooves muffled his voice. ‘Depends on the size of the mirror. And how far the focus was adjusted to reach us.’ A moment later, he added, ‘A hun
dred yards should be enough.’

  ‘Right!’

  The Termigans drove their mounts up to the gates of Sternwall. There they risked stopping.

  Terisa didn’t feel anything sharp or cold in her stomach. She didn’t feel anything except nausea. No more of the gnarled, black shapes jumped out of the air.

  Now instead of wanting to throw up she began to think it would be nice to faint.

  She didn’t get the chance. The man carrying her dropped her to the ground, then slid down beside her. The pressure of his grip made it clear he had no intention of letting her go. One of the other men held onto Geraden as he dismounted.

  There was sunset in the air now, as well as the glare of lava. The heavy timbers of the gate were tinged crimson; red ran in streaks along the edges of the buildings. The faces of the men hinted at bloodshed.

  ‘All right,’ one of them repeated. ‘Now tell us who you are. Before we decide to close the gate and leave you outside.’

  Terisa could still hear the deep, visceral boiling of the lava. That noise seemed to undermine everything around her; it made the Termigans sound malign, full of coiled malice.

  But Geraden nodded to them. ‘We’ve just come from Domne,’ he panted. ‘I’m Geraden, the Domne’s son. One of his sons, anyway. Houseldon has been burned to the ground.’

  The men stood motionless, caught between who he was and what he said. A crowd began to gather in the gate: more of the Termigan’s men, hostlers to take care of the horses, merchants, passersby. They all had the same red light in their eyes.

  After a moment, one of the men said noncommittally, ‘You better tell us who the woman is. And why you were attacked.’

  Instinctively, Terisa put a hand on Geraden’s arm, reaching out for protection against a threat she couldn’t identify.

  He also seemed to feel the menace. His arm was tight; he held himself poised. His gaze searched the faces around him. Carefully, he said, ‘My father has been a good and loyal neighbor to the Termigan all his life. The last time I was here, I slept in the Termigan’s house as a welcome guest.’